Brinker International (EAT), owner of several “casual dining” chains, said in its last 10-Q that it faces “challenging times.” With gas prices spiking up and consumer confidence spiking down, it seems Americans have been taking fewer spins to Brinker restaurants like Chili’s and On the Border. (Meanwhile, Brinker has been trying to sell its Macaroni [...]

In yesterday’s NY Times, Andrew Ross Sorkin interviewed Citadel Investment Group founder Ken Griffin, a critic of risk management practices in the financial services industry. “We have a responsibility,” says Griffin, “to manage risk in a way that is prudent.”
A slightly different statement about risk management comes from the folks at Anworth Mortgage [...]

Barack Obama is not the only one thinking about “change” right now. Here at Footnoted we’re also interested in change - namely, the ways that some companies’ 10-Ks have changed from last year’s versions. While these year-to-year comparisons highlight important trends in recent filings, e.g., the increased popularity of terms like “subprime” and “monoline exposure,” [...]

Earlier this week, there was news that new home sales continued to decline and that it was even worse than the forecast. If that wasn’t scary enough, take a look at the 10-K that home-builder Lennar (LEN) filed late yesterday.
Now Lennar is a bit more blunt than some of the other home-builders. Or, perhaps a [...]

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) filed its 10-K late yesterday and there were so many interesting details in the 182-page filing that it’s hard to know where to begin. But the thing that really seemed to resonate throughout was growing concerns about the economy and what impact that was likely to have on HP. The K comes on [...]